Easter Hill Village

Easter Hill Village: Some Social Implications of Design, by Clare Cooper Marcus, is a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of a housing project in Richmond in the 1960s. The book “investigate[s] possible discrepancies between designer’s assumptions about what residents want in public housing and what residents actually want.” (Cooper, p. 9) The innovative research approach Cooper employed in this study contributed greatly to the field; she was the first to conduct a detailed evaluation of a housing project comparing the architect’s objectives and resident reactions.

Left: Children’s drawings of their homes in Easter Hill Village with photos of their actual homes, 1966. Images courtesy of the College of Environmental Design Archives, Clare Cooper Marcus Collection.